The NSA: Never Not Watching 568
Trailrunner7 writes "For many observers of the privacy and surveillance landscape, the revelation by The Guardian that the FBI received a warrant from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to require Verizon to turn over to the National Security Agency piles of call metadata on all calls on its network probably felt like someone telling them that water is wet. There have been any number of signals in the last few years that this kind of surveillance and data collection was going on, little indications that the United States government was not just spying on its own citizens, but doing so on a scale that would dwarf anything that all but the most paranoid would imagine." And now the Obama administration has defended the practice as a "critical tool."
seems all the politicos are in favor (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only is the Executive branch in favor, but there's strong bipartisan support in the Legislative branch: immediately after this leak, both parties' ranking members on the Senate Intelligence Committee (Dianne Feinstein for the Democrats, Saxby Chambliss for the Republicans) held a press conference [washingtonpost.com] to defend the necessity of this kind of dragnet surveillance, and to claim that it's not a big deal since it's "just" metadata.
So much for freedom ... (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who frequently gets accused of having the tinfoil hat on a little snug, this is pretty much the worst case scenario.
"We're going to monitor everything, and maybe we'll get lucky" -- and how long before the technology progresses to the point that they can come back and say "hey, we see from phone records you called this alleged drug dealer 5 years ago, so we'll be charging you".
If this isn't about as Orwellian as you can get, I don't know what would be. Give up all your freedoms so we can make sure you keep your freedom is a joke -- Freedom is Slavery, War is Peace.
America is quickly ceasing to be free. And I'm pretty sure this doesn't pass Constitutional muster -- everything nowadays is driven by "we have an opinion which says this is ok, so we're going to do it".
Critical Tool (Score:5, Interesting)
In this case, the "critical tools" are Obama, Eric Holder, or who-ever is behind this large-scale invasion of privacy. I know plenty of people (mostly liberals) complained when the warrant-less wiretaps happened under Bush. It appears that these are considerably larger in scope.
Re:Constitution (Score:3, Interesting)
...particularly describing the ... things to be seized.
But, it's not seizure if they just take a copy (just like it's not theft if I just download a copy ;-)
Re:seems all the politicos are in favor (Score:4, Interesting)
This is why I'm in favor of states' rights.
Obama and Bush are both good people. We handed them power based on the assumption that they are good people. But what if the next President, or the one after that, or the one after that, is the next Hitler or Stalin in waiting?
The more powers we remove from our truest balance on the federal government, the individual governments of the many states and the well-known freedoms of the people, the more likely we prepare a power that can enslave us all or wipe humanity off earth.
The states need to stand up to this and enact constitutional change, in order to provide recourse against such acts and logistically enable that power to be used.
Re:seems all the politicos are in favor (Score:4, Interesting)
I want Dianne Feinsteins metadata, then. Shouldn't be a big issue, after all Malte Spitz [www.zeit.de] did it, and we didn't find out anything about him... except just about everything he did.
And even that was just the position data. It did not include who he called, it was just a simple newspaper (with limited resources) doing it, and it was not cross-checked with every other person in Germany.
Re:Critical tools (Score:5, Interesting)
American Spring (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a progressive. Not in the rebranded liberal sense, but in the T. Roosevelt, get your government and big business out of my business or I'll kick your ass sense. I don't oppose Obama because I'm a reflexive Tea Party guy who ridiculously, famously, calls him a muslim and radical Christian, socialist and fascist, at the same time.
But the US government is beyond out of control. Elections don't matter. Courts don't matter. The press is as much the problem, as the problem itself. Every peaceful avenue for reform and redress has been shut off or co-opted. Meanwhile, the thieving classes, meaning the 1%, are doubling down on their behavior thinking that no one in the 99% will ever hold them to account.
That means the clock is ticking for an American Spring. We are not hapless, disarmed Libyans. We are heavily armed Americans who have been raised from birth to believe we have a God-given right to be free. Those in the army are our brothers, sisters, and cousins. They are us. So if the 1% truly believe that they'll simply follow orders and drop napalm on the neighborhoods where their friends and family live, then they are due for an extremely rude awakening.
Go ahead, 1%'ers, move all your wealth to the British Virgin Islands and secrete yourselves there. Much good it will do you. Justice is coming, it's coming very soon, and you have a giant target painted on your ass.
YMMV
Re:Constitution (Score:5, Interesting)
Because telling Bin Laden
Everybody of significance involved in planning 9/11 is dead, at least those listed by the non-redacted portion of the 9/11 Commission Report.
What's going on now is not that. Maybe we should be asking what it is, exactly?
According to some, it's a hunt for every person in the world who may not in the future submit to the will of the US Government. War without End, in other words.
Right here haters.. step right up.. here I am (Score:4, Interesting)
What if it IS a critical tool? Huh? What if it's a fact about the world that this is a critical tool and is being used in the way it should to be used?
Is that possibility so counter to known reality that it should just be rejected out of hand the way you-all are doing ?
Because most readers here are acting on the premise that it's a true fact about the world that it is NOT a critical tool.
How did you acquire that certain knowledge about a set of facts in the world that you have no special knowledge of- the information contained in the President's PDBs?
I don't think it's unrealistic to the world as I understand it. Even if today, it is strictly not necessary because , say, we are overestimating the capabilities terrorists, what about tomorrow?
Nano-technology and artificial biology and genetic manipulation and high tech fabbing will come down to something close to the personal level sooner or later.
Civil secular society doesn't WANT to use those things to cause mass casualties to civilians and destablize the modern world, but sooner or later the steady increase of destructive power and the steady decrease in the number of people and resources it takes to wield that destructive power will intersect at an unfortunate point and it will be wielded by Christian or Islamic religionists who place no value on the affairs of men but only live to fight an unseen war taking place on some cosmic plane.
Then what?
Be truly rational and entertain the notion in your mind as a hypothesis that there is now or will be shortly something about the world that makes this measure necessary to countering acts of mass terrorism. . Now. What SHOULD we do?
We should have a national, open thorough, skeptical, informed and honest discussion across a wide range of topics around the security / privacy / liberty triad work out , aloud publicly and together what tradeoffs we're willing to endure and what ones we're not. What level of destruction and death and societal disruption we're collectively willing to endure and when - and if - that level ever becomes unacceptable.
We need to talk about this consciously and on a national scale. We need to talk as a nation and be explicit and be formal and capture as well as we can what we'll do and not do BEFORE anything happens.
Because what we have now is a strictly reactionary populace and to a degree government, who decides what the privacy liberty / security triad is going to look like right after and in response to terrorist events.
The result is anything but solidarity and unity. The Government hides its actions from the People. The People don't trust their Government and impugn ulterior - nearly insane - motives and this is as true on the left as it is on the right.
We are failing this national imperative. We are failing to plan and harden civil society for an inevitable war. We are at once protected, coddled and violated by our national security apparatus because it - and we - think we can't handle the truth.
I would love to think America would lead here, but America rarely leads. It's what Churchill said America will always do the right thing after every other possibility has been exhausted.
I think it has to be the EU that leads here. They are much more rational , less fanatically religious and absolutist in their world view , and inclined more towards collective action than the US.
Someone somewhere has to start talking about this and someone in government needs to give that discussion the imprimatur of officialdom and lift it up. We have to do this because the alternative is structural, institutionalized extremism, borne in reaction to random events, fueled by reactionary impulses and finally codified into law.
That is when civil society stats to break down, not because of a bomb or disease or anything else but because we permitted ourselves to continue exist in a fantasy land of 18th century perspectives and values until that fantasy was exploded and we had no idea how to carry on.
Re:Conservatives and Gov't Snooping, Baffled (Score:0, Interesting)
you are forgetting that the tea party has been silenced by the IRS... I wouldnt call myself a member by any means but i am on their side most of the time. There is zero excuse for this
WTF? Some groups were using a loophole in the law to avoid campaign laws requiring disclosing of donors and they got caught. That's not silencing and real Tea Party groups that claim to be political parties weren't even looked at by that division of the IRS. Pay attention. This shit's important.
Re:Constitution (Score:5, Interesting)
or you'll get audited by the IRS
or you'll have OSHA drop by
or you'll have the NLRB prevent you from opening an office in another state...
The regulatory power of the executive is enough of a threat.
Re:Constitution (Score:5, Interesting)
"They were even advised that seeking a lawyer's advice before complying would be a crime."
I would love to see how that would play out in court.
Re:Constitution (Score:3, Interesting)
The Real Story... (Score:4, Interesting)
What should be gained from this "story" is not the shoveling of data to the government. what you should ask yourself when you hear a blatant and obvious illegal and unconstitutional usurpation of rights is... why am I hearing this.
Think about that for a bit and then realize what this "story" is about.
For those who cant or wont make the logical leaps.. let me spell it out.
This information is not some news scoop. If you dont think the US govt and mass media outlets can and do make information (and people for that matter) disappear then I envy your bliss.
No, when you see these headlines, what you are seeing is a focused and intentional psychological exercise to let you know how it will be, not some lucky journalist who got the next big story. Look at it for what it is.. not what it is intended to do.
Re:Spending (Score:5, Interesting)
The ultimate goal of any police state is merely to justify more spending and expand the business of government. Power and control are merely the stepping stones to riches, not a goal in itself. Many people have trouble accepting this, because they focus on the injustice and assume that injustice is the goal. Or they focus on the power and control and assume that power and control are the goals. Or they focus on the failures and assume that the "intentions" are correct but the "implementation" is wrong.
On the contrary, intentions are the smokescreen, power is the stepping stone, injustice is the "collaterage damage", and money is the goal.
At a certain level, yes. But that is not the top level. Do you think a Rockefeller wants more money? Once you have multi-billions, it's not about the money anymore; you couldn't go broke if you tried. Once you're in the upper echelon it is very much about power and control. Haven't you ever wanted to remake the world as you see fit? There are some who operate at that level.
Re:Constitution (Score:5, Interesting)
I work for a phone company. You are VERY wrong. The fines for us releasing this kind of information without a warrent are so serious that many people that I work with refuse to take positions where they have access to this kind of data. One poorly written SQL query and you're getting walked out the door. We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for even small infractions.
The ECPA also added new provisions prohibiting access to stored electronic communications
*snip*
The 'electronic communication' means any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic or photooptical system that affects interstate or foreign commerce
*snip*
Title II of the ECPA, the Stored Communications Act (SCA), protects communications held in electronic storage, most notably messages stored on computers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Communications_Privacy_Act [wikipedia.org]
The information the NSA is collecting is the data portion of your conversation.
This is clearly a violation of the 4th amendment.